3. Teddy

M y hands shook as I buttoned up my jacket. The evening was warm, and the heat from the sun still lingered despite the light breeze that should have been a relief.

What a load of bollocks.

In a way, I wish I'd just worn my old, ripped T-shirt and a pair of shorts. But this was not just a get-together. This was the time in your life when you showed off your achievements. Look at me and how successful I am kind of vibes. I had nothing to show off. I had become exactly what everyone had expected of me. Several degrees in different aspects of crop cultivating, land management and mixed farming. Landowner. Farmer. Bloody farmer. I drove a tractor. Had an advanced chainsaw licence. I was the bloke who always smelled slightly of woodchip and sweat and had dirt under my fingernails. I nervously wiped my hands on my trousers. In my defence, I paid my bills and had a decent turnover and actually slept at night, which many other farmers didn't.

The community hall looked the same as always, no fancy decorations or signs declaring the importance of this evening's event. The doors were open, though, and music blared from the speakers, no doubt courtesy of Gideon's Garage, down the road. Gid hired out all sorts of weird contraptions—I'd seen them on occasion—and he was a mate. He was also here, by the door, greeting me with a firm handshake .

School reunion, my arse. This might as well have been the council meeting or the landowner forum ball—you name it, there would always be the same people. Gid. Nicklas from the farm up the hill. Pete from the farm down in the valley. Soren from the health centre. Zach from the pizza joint. Theresa from the Forestry Association. I swallowed a laugh. She looked odd all dressed up, because usually we'd match in our overalls. She laughed and came and shook my hand too. Thank whatever that she didn't attempt to hug me, because here was Flora, too many curls bouncing around her face and her arms around my neck.

"Told ya." She grinned. "It was me, wasn't it? I convinced you in the end. You need to keep an eye on me so I don't get too drunk. You know what I'm like when I get too drunk."

I laughed, squeezing her arm in support, because I knew. Flora was a right pain when she got too many beers down her neck. The number of times in our youth when I'd picked her up and dragged her home…she'd even crashed on our sofa a few times. When we still had a sofa. Before we had to throw all the furniture out in the shed to make space for Dad's hospital bed and all the other medical equipment. And the nurses.

I tried to shrug off the unease. The furniture was still out in the shed, and I couldn't bear to go check if it was still usable or if the local rodents had moved in and shredded the whole lot.

Perhaps I was still grieving. Or perhaps I was just me.

This place was the same as always. Musky dust crept up my nostrils as I was man-hugged awkwardly by someone whose name failed to materialise on my tongue. Worked in IT. Talked too much. Oh well, whatever. His skin was shiny like he was covered in the kind of make-up Flora wore. I pretended to laugh at something he said when in reality I wasn't listening.

I wished I hadn't come. I wished I could be somewhere else, skulk out the back door and just go home. It wasn't like anyone would miss me.

Apart from Flora, who once again appeared by my side, clinging to my arm. I didn't mind. She was the one person I was always happy to see. We knew the drill here, no words needed as I wrapped my arm around her and let her snuggle into my side. We were friends. Always.

"You remember Ned Anderson?" she mouthed at me, her breath already smelling sweet and alcoholic as she took another swig out of the bottle in her hand. I needed a drink too. A stiff one.

"What about him?" I deflected, trying to figure out how to get my hands on a bottle of whatever Flora had. There were tables with boxes of stuff underneath. Ah. A makeshift bar materialised behind the mass of people. Drink. Good.

She giggled and squeezed my arm. "Pernilla said he's coming. Who knows why. I mean, he was only at school with us for what, a year?"

"He's got family here," I said, dragging us closer to the bar. "Why wouldn't he come?"

I was talking rubbish, and my armpits were wet. I hated this. Really hated this. I wasn't a party person. I didn't socialise. Why anyone thought these kinds of things were fun was beyond me.

"He lives in America," Flora added, giggling again. Very her. "I've always wanted to go to America, but with Mum and Dad being a bit older now, I can't really leave them in charge. The curse of being a farmer."

I grunted.

Flora didn't look like a farmer this evening. She was poured into some kind of silky piece of fabric that barely covered her ample bosom, and her legs were a different colour to her arms. I stroked my finger over her elbow, arching my eyebrows in another unspoken question.

"Fake tan," she whispered.

See? We knew each other. She'd taught me everything I knew about human beings. Friendship. Unconditional support. And she still hung out with me, after all these years.

"Drink," I muttered. She was already way ahead of me, depositing her now-empty bottle in the crate on the floor and grabbing two beers off the counter before pushing one of them into my hand. The clink of the glass as our bottles met hurt my ears. It was too loud in here, stupid music mixing with the voices causing my eyes to blur. I couldn't focus on anything.

"It's all right, Ted," she said softly, squeezing my arm harder. "It's absolutely fine to just stand around. You don't need to actually talk to people. You showed up. We'll have a drink. Do this for me. I don't want to be here on my own."

I understood. I didn't want to be here on my own either. It wasn't like Flora and I had been popular at school. We hadn't been part of the in-crowd or gone on to glittering futures via big universities. We were the sad people left behind—by choice, I might add. I'd never craved an escape from this place, from the acres of dirt I'd always called home. Neither had Flora, as she plastered one of her hilarious fake smiles on her face.

"Anne-Marie!" she shrieked as said person swanned into her overenthusiastic embrace. I remembered Anne-Marie. She apparently remembered me too, giving me a judgemental up and down.

"Teddy. Teddy? Is it still Teddy? Sounds rather childish for a grown man."

Yeah, Anne-Marie was still the bitch she'd been all through school.

"Still Teddy," I said flatly, as interested in her as she was in me. She smirked and went to harass someone else who'd caught her attention.

"Bitch," Flora muttered. "Don't leave, just need the loo."

With that, she disappeared, leaving me to wander aimlessly into the back rooms. Ah, I remembered it well. The tired kitchen full of boxes and bags. The small hallway leading out onto the veranda that, despite the ongoing party, was almost deserted. Almost .

"Teddy, mate!" Pete.

I nodded and turned away, hoping he'd get the message. No such luck.

"Good to see you."

Once an arsehole, always an arsehole. Pete had been one of those blokes who'd made my life a living hell back at school, tormented me relentlessly with snide remarks, just like the bully he still was. The only difference now was that we tolerated each other, engaging in civil adult interactions because we had to. We sometimes shared equipment, and he chaired the landowner forum, so I ignored my rampant urge to smack him in the face. I wasn't a violent person. Never had been.

"How's it going?" I asked. I had no interest in his response. I was just looking for a quiet place. Somewhere I could actually sit in the sun and drink my beer.

"Did you see? That Ned turned up. You know, the gay bloke? American? Still gay, no doubt. Watch your back."

"What the fuck?" I didn't mean that the way it came out.

Pete just grinned. "Yeah, we don't need any of them 'round here. It's all good in the cities, but out here, we're decent country folk."

I so wanted to punch him in the face. I didn't though.

"You're an arsehole, Pete," I said. I'd called him out before because he knew full well which way I swung, a fact he repeatedly chose to ignore, like if he didn't acknowledge me telling him that finding a wife was not on the cards, ever, it wasn't true—

"You should come to church," he said.

—which was why he still went to church and I didn't. My dad had stopped going when I was a child. After… Well.

"It's never too late to find Jesus."

I snorted. Pete and Father Larson had a similar attitude problem, and I had absolutely no interest in spending my precious spare time sharing oxygen with either of them or their views.

"You and Flora still a thing then? She's a pretty girl."

I stared at him, hard, my usual response to the bile-filled nonsense he churned out, and fought back a smile of satisfaction at Pete's squirming in the face of my stern silence. I gave him a slightly too hard friendly punch in the arm, hoping he got my disapproving vibes.

I was no pushover. I could stand up for myself, but this? This right here was why I wanted to leave.

I took myself around the corner and up the stairs to the roof terrace. We'd played here as kids. Climbed over the badly put-together gate onto the roof where we'd sat and viewed our tiny, insignificant kingdom .

Flora would know where to find me, but I texted her just in case. I wasn't going to leave her to the wolves down there, not tonight. It was bad enough having to deal with the likes of Pete.

This was my little kingdom. If I looked out to the left, I could see all the way up Henriksvik High Street. The modern-looking church hall. The pizzeria with its sun-bleached flag. The supermarket, still open, with late shoppers grabbing their Saturday evening snacks.

Ten years ago, I had graduated from what had then been a thriving school on my right. Now the classrooms stood empty in the deserted building as the remaining kids here were bussed to a larger town; the seniors had to go even further afield to get their education. There was no future in small places like this. There was no industry here, no high-earning job opportunities. We were lucky to still have a doctor's surgery, a functioning shop with a built-in post office and a campsite that was popular in the summer, when a handful of tourists swooped in to bolster our numbers.

But people still needed Christmas trees and a decent farming college. The remaining working farms were getting by, and…

I had no idea why I was sitting here reminiscing because it truly didn't matter. Ten years ago, the whole class had stood on those steps down there and screamed about freedom, talked about being friends forever, the air filled with excited chatter about a future that none of us had understood.

I still didn't.

Flora had gone home and got drunk on her own.

I'd walked home, Ned Anderson trailing in my wake, his footsteps scratching against the dusty gravel. I could still hear them if I closed my eyes. The way his trainers scuffed against the earth, his breaths…him, right behind me, like he'd always been. Always there.

I hadn't laughed the next day and neither had Dad when I pretended to nurse the hangover of the century when the truth was I hadn't drunk a drop. My whole life had shattered and I couldn't tell a single soul. The trauma of youth. These days, it made no difference. None at all .

Flora had sulked when I'd refused to tell her anything. Properly sulked.

The memories made me smile and even laugh out loud when I suddenly remembered the rest of that night. The lies, the reasons why. I'd kissed Flora.

Fuck.

I'd kissed her earlier that day as well, the two of us hiding behind the bakery under the shade of some trees. She'd laughed her head off. I had too, eventually. In relief.

Memories and thoughts muddling my slowly becoming-alcohol-infused brain. One beer and I was losing my shit.

There were voices below me, and I leant forward over the railings so I could get a better view. Pete, Gid, someone else whose name I couldn't remember, and then another voice belonging to…

Ned Anderson. I remembered him, all right. He'd been the most popular boy in our year. Well, for that last year, when he'd become this American dude with one of those high-school-movie kind of smiles. The perfect male specimen, all tall beauty, cheekbones and dimples, the one person everyone wanted to be friends with. The girls had followed him around like Flora's sheep. The boys had been suitably standoffish at first, but it hadn't taken long before they'd all been pulled in by his charms. It had felt as if Ned was everywhere, until he wasn't, and the space he'd left behind…

I sighed, looked down at the small crowd as I sipped from my beer bottle, trying to make it last. I didn't want to go back down there again, but I needed more beer. A few bottles would do, until I was mellow and soft and could stumble home through the fields. I just wanted to go home.

Shoving my arse backwards, I leaned against the warm wooden planks behind me, my head resting against a rusty old window frame. I closed my eyes, letting myself drift. The sun was warm on my face.

It dawned on me that all these people here—none of us had grown up. Being gathered in this place again, we were still the same stupid children we'd been back then. We'd slotted back into our old boxes. I had no confidence in the handshakes I'd dished out. I didn't feel any wiser. I felt small and insignificant and still pushed to the very edge of the world as we'd known it. The one in the corner who didn't matter. Nobody would have noticed if I hadn't turned up. Honestly, I still didn't know why I had. Perhaps a morbid curiosity to see if people had changed.

Nobody had changed. Not even Flora and me. We were still the same. The ones on the outside. Insignificant. There were people down there whose names I barely remembered, some I'd swear I'd never seen before in my life, and I knew they were looking at me thinking the same. I hadn't been a memorable child. As a teen, I'd blended into the wallpaper. Same as now, sitting here on the roof, hiding from view.

Footsteps on the stairs. I laughed ruefully and combed my fingers through my hair.

"I hope you brought me another beer, Flo," I said, expecting her blotchy, fake-tanned arms to open the gate.

They didn't. Instead, the gate swung open, and there stood a man. A bloody vision of a man.

Ned Anderson hadn't changed a bit.